Hangover: Can You Really Cure It? (2024)

FAQs

Hangover: Can You Really Cure It? ›

Time is the only sure cure for a hangover. Symptoms can last up to 24 hours. In the meantime, here are a few things you can do to help yourself feel better: Fill your water bottle.

Some hangover treatments work better than others, but none are an actual cure. The only way to avoid a hangover is to limit how much you drink or to not drink alcohol at all.

A hangover is unpleasant, but symptoms tend to go away within a day or so. If you drank too much alcohol and feel sick, try at-home hangover remedies like drinking plenty of water, eating some carbs and sleeping. There's no quick cure for hangovers. You need to let your body rid itself of the alcohol and heal.

The idea behind this myth is that more alcohol might be the cure to your current hangover. It's incredibly circular logic when you actually think about it... "While more alcohol may make you feel a little better in the moment, having another drink can actually prolong your hangover symptoms.

One study found that the older a person gets, the less frequent and severe their hangovers become. One potential explanation for this could be that alcohol tolerance tends to increase with age, meaning older people would have to consume higher levels of alcohol to feel the same effects as younger people drinking less.

"The combination of sugar, caffeine, fluid, fizz and cold gives people the impression that their hangover is better," she explains. "It is a fluid so will solve your thirst to a certain extent, but it does not contain much in the way of electrolytes; minerals that aid rehydration.

Obviously, the only sure way to avoid a hangover is to not drink alcohol. But if you are going to indulge, Tabakoff says the tried-and-true advice — eat something before you drink, and while you drink, makes good sense. "Food is very good for the purpose of slowing the absorption of alcohol," he says.

When Does a Hangover Peak and How Long Does It Last? Hangover symptoms peak when the blood alcohol concentration in the body returns to about zero. The symptoms can last 24 hours or longer.

They can last for 24 hours or sometimes longer – depending on how much you had to drink and other physical factors, such as body size and liver health. There can also be a psychological element to hangxiety, as you may wake up stressed if you can't remember what happened the night before.

Are hangovers worse as you age? ›

Alcohol is harder to metabolize as you get older. Your liver is slower to process alcohol, extending the hangover effects. The level of body water decrease with age not allowing alcohol to dilute the same way. Less tolerance due to drinking less often in your thirties.

Choosing types of alcohol with fewer congeners—like beer, vodka and wine—might reduce your hangover symptoms compared to alcohols with higher congeners—like brandy, whiskey and rum.

For example, you might have heard that showering can help you sober up fast and help with the hungover feeling the next day. However, no credible studies highlight a link between taking a shower and getting sober. While showering cannot rid your body of alcohol, it is beneficial in other ways.

Alcohol acts as a diuretic, meaning that it causes the body to lose water. Although replacing the lost water won't cure your hangover, it will make it less painful. Try Gatorade or another sports drink to replenish lost electrolytes and get a bit of sugar at the same time.

A difference in a gene that affects the way the body breaks down alcohol may make some people flush, sweat or become ill after drinking even a small amount of alcohol. Issues that may make a hangover more likely or worse include: Drinking on an empty stomach.

By harming the blood vessels and your gut, alcohol causes the body to turn on itself. The inflammatory response is unpleasant — symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headache, confusion and tremor, as well as clinical depression, which induces mood changes, cognitive impairment and learning and memory deficits.